By John L. Micek
So what can the plight of a little cafe tell you about the state of the American economy and the changing face of work? A lot, as it turns out.
The other week, the bistro where my family and I have been grabbing brunch every Sunday since the start of the pandemic announced that it would be shuttering on weekends, and shifting to a more limited, weekday schedule. The reason was a familiar one: The owner couldn’t find the staff they needed to both function effectively and to keep themselves and their current staff from being ground into dust from the punishing pace.
The news was heartbreaking, if entirely unsurprising. Employers across the nation are struggling with a labor shortage so profound that one Alabama pizzeria vowed to hire “literally anyone” just to keep the doors open, according to Business Insider.
Business leaders have falsely blamed the crisis on generous pandemic unemployment benefits, arguing that they’re a disincentive to return to the labor force. Study after study has proven this is not the case. Instead, more seismic forces are at work.
In April of this year, a staggering 4 million people quit their jobs, in a phenomenon that’s come to be called “The Great Resignation,” Vox reported.
It’s not that people don’t want to work, but rather it’s that, after an earth-shattering 16 months that have seen hundreds of thousands of our family members, friends, and neighbors die at the hands of an implacable and indiscriminate foe, there’s just a genuine question of whether grinding it out for 40 hours a week at a job with substandard pay, low benefits, and little work-home balance is really worth it.
Increasingly, the answer is a resounding “No.”
Hospitality and leisure workers, who staff restaurants, bars, and hotels, and who had to bear the brunt of pandemic-induced rage for low wages and little dignity, are leading that exodus. In April, the sector lost more than 740,000 people.
In the midst of the pandemic, workers across industries discovered something: When they weren’t tethered to desks or jobs, there was time for something miraculous: Family and community, the hobby they’d been putting off learning, the time to retrain and search for new, and more fulfilling, work.
Admittedly, not everyone had this luxury, working parents had to scramble to find child care, or balance the demands of remote work against acting as their children’s homeroom teacher.
The shift was particularly hard for low-income workers. Frontline workers didn’t have the luxury of stepping back at all.
Even so, “We have changed. Work has changed. The way we think about time and space has changed,” Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley told NPR. Having been given time and space and flexibility by the pandemic, workers now crave and demand it, she told NPR.
And then, something else happened, because of unprecedented, direct payments from the federal government — as much as $3,200 each — the number of Americans in poverty began to fall, according to Vox, from 12.8 percent in 2018 to 8.5 percent. That’s based on projections that researchers at Columbia University made in March.
Separate research by the Urban Institute, also cited by Vox, projected that 2021 poverty will be about 7 percent, nearly cutting the 2018 rate in half.
The Biden White House’s child tax credit program, monthly payments of up to $300 per child to American families, is similarly expected to lift millions of children out of poverty. Republicans argue against such largess, saying it perpetuates the welfare state.
It is hard to deny the bottom line reality: When you give people money, they are less poor, happier, and more likely to inject that money back into the economy. In fact, economists expect economic growth of about 7 percent this year, and 4.9 percent, in 2022, fueled by the stimulus and vaccines, Reuters reported.
Good policy choices drive down poverty. And American workers, by now accustomed to the flexibility of the post-pandemic economy, and the regular flow of stimulus checks, are unlikely to want to backtrack on that.
But it can’t end there. To help both employers and workers, Washington and Harrisburg need to step up and do a couple of things.
One of them is finally making the wealthiest Americans, who grew even richer during the pandemic, pay their fair share.
Earlier this week, new research by a coalition of Pennsylvania advocates showed that that if a wealth tax proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren had been in effect in 2020, “the nation’s billionaires alone would have paid $114 billion for that year—and would pay an estimated combined total of $1.4 trillion over 10 years.”
That would pay for roughly half the $3.5 trillion budget resolution backed by the Biden administration that would dramatically remake the post-pandemic economy. Approving it would pay for child care and a host of other programs that would enable Americans to go back to work in a sustainable and healthy way.
We also need to stop tying health coverage and other benefits to employment. The United States stands nearly alone in tying health coverage and other key benefits to work.
The pandemic proved that everything we know about work is wrong. And there’s no stepping back from it now.
An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him here and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.
Mark says
Of course it’s not! Spend 40 hours a week away from your family? Who could pay you enough for that? Meanwhile people staying at work late just to get away from home, how miserable of a life you must have. Stay home, make income from home is a must , in this day and age it is bad to your health to work in a public environment. Stay home , stay safe , love your family or go find one you do , but don’t have a family you are bored with and must work 40 hours away from them.
MikeM says
I guess all the factory and manufacturing work will be done at home. All the service work too. Maybe contractors can do renovation work from home. Now enough sarcasm. Your input is so unrealeastic as to be inane.
Mark says
This is not sarcasm, this is the way of now. Mostly robots and automation will take over factory and labor jobs, 9-5 working lifestyle is a thing of the past left only for the lower class to risk their and their families health. Invest in yourself and keep your family safe. STAY HOME STAY SAFE.
MikeM says
More like stay home and starve. Staying home is not the solution. Sorry but the world doesn’t work that way. If everybody stayed home where does the tax base to pay you to stay home come from?
Mark says
No one is suggesting a hand out , there are many ways to make money from home these days
Katherine says
The work force expects hard working, dedicated employees but paying unrealistic wages you can’t live off, not in today’s cost of living. Servers for example 2.75 an HR! Really! Give them a living wage and they wouldn’t have to force to live off tips… America Goverment isn’t for the people but for themselves to bridge a wide gap between rich and poor, to us separated by race and chaos…
MikeM says
I know several waiters and waitresses making $200 to $400 a day in tips. That is the nature of their jobs. If they aren’t making good tips, they are not doing a good job. Time to find a new career.
Local says
These people make alot of money in tips and don’t even report them on their taxes. Good waitstaffers can make well over 200$ a day in tips if they are good at their jobs.
James M. Mejuto says
Ya know! . . . All this mumble-jumble that the rich ‘finally pay their taxes’ is just that . . . mumble-jumble!
After their high priced attorneys and accountants get through with it, they’re be no pickin’s for the government!
What it all means is we, the people will never get our hands on taxes due!
James M. mejuto
E, ROBOT says
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Holy moley. We can only succeed by our own efforts and accepting charity from our fellow citizens instead fending for ourselves is wrong on every level. We remain dependent instead of independent. Don’t like low paying jobs, learn to be more valuable.
MikeM says
Well put. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Maria Darcy says
Thank you for saying what many of us are thinking! This article could start a raging conversation/debate on this site.
Mark says
Will someone please tell me what a “fair share” is.
MikeM says
Nothing in life is fair. You get what you earn. If you dont earn enough , go to school and become more valuable to an employer which implies you make more money. If you are looking for equity, move to a communist country. Venezuela or Cuba where evetybody is equally poor.
Dennis says
I agree to this to a point. But when your family is hungry, your living in a car or on the streets, many of these jobs would go a long way to feed your family. With limited education, your options are limited. It depends on what kind of person you really are. Support your family, or wait for the perfect job that’s unlikely to come. Biden makes it easy, with all the freebies. When your hungry enough, you will get a job. When your family is hungry, maybe you’ll get a job. Young kids today are used to having been supplied with everything they need. In the real world, your owed nothing. I popped gum off the floor for a job while I was going to college. Work was scarce. Took what you could get. Got my d3gree, made lots of money and supported my family very nicely. You work for it or you go without. They will never learn that in socialism. The new American way. Sad. America is doomed under socialism.
Benson says
Since 1978 CEO pay has risen 940%, while the average worker pay has risen only 12%.
No doubt an occupy Wall St 2.0 is desperately needed in this country.
MikeM says
Get more education and become a CEO if that is what you aspire to. There is no law that says you cannot.
joe says
“Get more education…” – In some cases, that’s harder than you seem to think. I was unemployed for about 3 years back in 2011 – and after many months of job searches led to no responses, I exhausted my resources to where I had only two part-time low wage jobs and food stamps to get by.
With car insurance, gas, medications, an internet / phone bill (since the State of Florida did away with in-person handling of Unemployment claims), and toiletries – since food stamps cover none of these items, I barely kept food on the table and gas in the car.
So, “Get more education” was totally unrealistic – as it may be for many now.
You and the others who seem to be so quick and free with your hard stance might want to rethink it – although, I doubt you will.
MikeM says
Adapt, overcome, do what you have to do to feed your family. In my 20’s and 30’s I worked 2 full time jobs to feed and house my family. As my skills grew my pay got better. The 20 somethings have become “pussies”. Stop complaining and get to work. Any job is better than no job until something better comes along. That’s how it works and that how it has always worked. By the way I have always been an hourly paid worker. Working since I was 12 . That is how I was brought up. I never quit and I never gave up.
Gary R says
I agree with MikeM. Back in the 70’s and 80’s I worked two jobs doing 60 to 70 hours per week and going to engineering school. It took me 8 years to get mechanical engineering degree but I did it. I never quit. And today I am retired living on social security and two pensions and still work part time.
Jimbo99 says
Exactly, this is a world of mismanaged poverty. What point is there in working several jobs to end up being a government welfare recipient that needs a Government credit/subsidy (handout) for affordable housing & affordable healthcare that really isn’t affordable. The catastrophic healthcare issue becomes the event that wipes out generational & lifetime accumulation of any savings/inheritance. And along the way it’s a society of a perpetuating bleed down of solutions that don’t work very well.
Doesn’t take any one very long to figure out that the benefit doesn’t really go very far. Take the Federal rent/mortgage relief. Nationally, only 10% of that was ever disbursed, & FL 2% of that aid was ever disbursed. So that money sat around and anyone that paid their mortgage or rent just got bled out for 1+ years. There was an eviction ban, that’s now coming to an end too. Biden-Harris have resorted to paying corrupt governments to attempt to slow illegal immigration. This is a world that will compensate as many as possible to be abused & neglected pets, while slavery still may exist, the resultant wage slavery ends up being no better. That is the history of the human race, creating financial hardship regardless of diversity & atrocity.
Joe says
Great article, it’s the low wages that are keeping people from working. You can’t live in Flagler county on 10 dollars an hour. The argument of its a starter job is irrelevant because the rent or mortgage is not starter rent.
Then comes the old lie about having to raise prices on the products. That is a LIE. The owners can just make a little less and make it up over time instead of trying to make all the money in one day.(GREED).
An employee has to want to come to work and if their job is low paying with no future of advancement who wants to work there? You have to have employees that want to come to work. A lesson I learned years ago and since then I don’t have trouble finding help if I need it because my employees want to stay. Hopefully for those of you who just want to get all you can out of an employee without giving anything back will take a second look at how you are doing business or you can just wait and see if it returns to the norm as you are hoping it does.
Mary Fusco says
Joe, funny that the low wages were fine before the pandemic and the freebees. I am a firm believer that all jobs are only worth so much. i.e. My daughter is an RN and doesn’t expect to be paid a surgeon’s wage. If she wants to get paid a surgeon’s wage, she needs to get off her duff and go to medical school like he did. If one doesn’t care to pursue education, they will need to work more hours in order to get by. When my daughter was in Flagler College studying to be a special ed teacher, she went to school during the day and worked 3-11 in a hotel for the 4 years she was there. My other daughter went to nursing school during the day and worked the night shift at the local hospital as a nurse’s aide. When my husband and I needed extra $ for expenses, I took a second job. Worked 60 hours a week for 8 years (kids in college). The key in life is to set a goal and work towards it, not stand with your hand out. Just my opinion.
mark101 says
“”In April of this year, a staggering 4 million people quit their jobs,”” Hell the majority of these people were working before covid and then got free money and stopped working which meant businesses cut back or even closed. Now the money train is stopping and these people are complaining. Businesses are opening up but workers are staying home, hoping for more free money. Tough crap get out and get a job.
” pandemic proved that everything we know about work is wrong”, what the pandemic proved is the US is filled with a lot of lazy ungrateful people that would rather get FREE handouts then do a hard days work after all they WERE WORKING. .
So what these people want is the Gov or state or even the still working middle class to give them more free money. I see help wanted signs all over the place. Get a freaking job.
Concerned Citizen says
Or maybe we should just start minding our own damn busniess. And not judge others when we don’t know the whole story of someone. And shouldn’t unless we are going to help.
I have 2 close friends in my circle. Both families have lost loved ones due to Covid and are now in primary care taking roles. So working has become a secondary concern at the moment while they adjust to a new life. I have another friend who just got a job after being continiously turned down after having Covid. And get this she’s a BSN with years of experience. But once that nasty C word affects your life things are very different.
It’s also affecting those who are getting hired. The hire process is taking up to 2 weeks longer where I work. Because we have minimal staffing in our office. And our HR screening company is running remote with fewer people. I could hire and staff a guard contract in a week pre Covid. Now it takes two because background checks take longer to clear.
And finally some of it boils down to is RESPECT. Ya’ll are some nasty rude entitled people out there. I watched a family do nothing but complain about a young waitress on her first job. She was busting her rear with a slow kitchen not staffed fully. Then they openly bragged about stiffing her. My wife and I ended up leaving something on that table And went and gave the manager a heads up. If you go out to eat be nice to those people. It doesn’t take much.
In the past 2 years I have seen so much change in our society and none of it good. The open hostility and rudeness. And sense of entitlement. You know what Covid has affected us all in some way or another. For you to come up to me in an open parking lot and demand I put a mask on takes balls. You don’t know what type of day I just had. So if I’m leaving you alone stay out of my face. Unless you have a badge on you have zero enforcement authority. Somewhere we forgot what being civil means to each other. And most of us are just trying to adjust in an environment that changes by the hour.
I get it that some are or have taken advantage of the system. The system left it’self wide open for that. But for some it was a life saver. And again at the end of the day it boils down to being NONE OF YOUR BUSNIESS.
Mike Cocchiola says
As long as our domestic Taliban (GQP) Party is able to bully, intimidate, gerrymander and disenfranchise American voters we will be a second-rate country under the fists and guns of the violent minority.
A political party that purposefully denies health care to our most needy, working wages to our poor, and protection of basic rights of our women, minorities, and LBGTQ+ citizens is a threat to greatness, not the answer. A party in violent denial of medical and environmental sciences and our deplorable history of hate and suppression will not make America great. Only angry and hateful.
It is time our good, caring and compassionate citizens rise up and make America live up to its great promise.
Toto says
Boy, did YOU ever hit the nail on the head!
Guido says
If everyone just stayed home and lived off of the government, who would work and pay taxes to support everyone?
Please don’t let this country go down the tubes, it is my belief that you have to make stuff and sell it to survive and we have been sold out to China.
Grey Man says
Sounds very communist to me. Tell me again where communism has worked.
Florida Voter says
So … you (along with a few other comments) are telling me that:
The number of people willing to work for a job is offset by the work environment and the what the employer is willing to pay; worse environment and lower pay means fewer people willing to work.
That sounds a lot like: the number of people willing to pay for a product is offset by the quality of the product and the price the seller is demanding; worse quality and higher cost means fewer people willing to buy that product.
Please check which economic system that is. Hint: it starts with a “c” but is not communism.
Local says
This article is wrong about goods prices not going up. My grocery bill has gone up 20% over the last year. Gas has went up. Lumber is through the roof.
I have started raising all my prices to all my customers as has everyone I know to compensate. It all trickles down….you can deny it all you want but it’s happening. People don’t run a business to make less and less each year.
Stephen Smith says
It all trickles down? Yes prices have gone up. You raised yours to account for it. Did you raise your workers wages as well? They have to pay those increased prices as well.
Local says
Yep! I have to Work 72 hrs a week alone because people are to sorry to work…don’t show up….play with their phones….have drug problems and can’t work all day. Two people asked if I can pay them cash so they can still draw unemployment…..LMAO….I’m not paying them twice..
FlaglerBear says
I had to read this article several times to wrap my head around the point of the whole thing…So, Reuters said, if you just, give people money, “they’ll be happier, less poor, and more likely to inject money into the community.” Wow! Where was Reuters when I was going to school, working, and planning my life? I could’ve just sat back and waited for someone from the government to hand me cash from the big money tree in Washington. But I didn’t, I went out like many and worked my butt off for what I now have, which is a home and a pension. Growing up, I’m sure we all have worked for people and in places we didn’t particularly care for. It’s called life. It makes us stronger. Are we today raising a new generation of people who have resolved that there’s no point in work as long as others care for us? This is a bad idea. Someone has to pay for it.
Get a job says
It must have been nice for the unemployed to get all that extra money when it was rolling in… The people that have been working non stop since this began get nothing special, stop it with the I need a raise or I’m not working for 11 an hour stop being lazy and get off your ass.. Go ahead and complain about how expensive things have gotten just wait until min wage hits 15 an hour and see how much higher the cost of living will be
Mark says
You are confusing being lazy for being smart, only uneducated people would put themselves and their family at risk by working at a job amongst others or the public.
Lil Bird says
Some jobs are only worth so much. How much should a dishwasher get paid? $10, $15, $20, $40? How much should the housekeeper , school bus driver, receptionist or person refilling the pineapples in the produce bin? What about a Dr or a plumber or mechanic ?
In terms of equity advocates, all should make a certain amount, as determined by the Marie Antionettes of government, of course.
Alas, if we do not remember history we are doomed to repeat it.
Katrina Elizabeth Friel says
Prior to the pandemic, the country had a workforce shortage. The pandemic only made it worse.
Obviously people didn’t read the entire article because it states that supplemental unemployment “welfare” is NOT the reason people are leaving their jobs.
Why? People have had a change of heart AND because the smart ones know this situation WILL drive up wages because employers need to be more competitive. Why stay in a minimum wage job when you can get $15 per hour to START at Buckees?
People want to work. They want to work smart. They are burned out and scared and reevaluating their lives’ worth and where they spend their time and energy. Its an employees’ market right now.
Many are changing career paths for more money OR for more fulfilling employment.
Many have learned to do what they need with less by cutting out a lot of extraneous materialism and external entertainment. Staying in hotels has turned to camping out, days at the park have turned to days at the beach etc.
Many baby boomers have left the workforce to retire and/or their second income retirement job because they don’t want the risk.
Gen X is the smallest population so we weren’t saturating the labor force to begin with.
Millennials are choosing to be entrepreneurs. They are finding ways to make their side hustle a full-time gig.
The iGen is just coming into the workforce. Many are still getting their educations.
It used to be in Florida, teens couldn’t find after-school weekend jobs because they were all filled with retirees. Maybe now the job market will be reset so that teens actually get the minimum wage jobs and the adults get jobs that pay enough for people to support their families.
Vet some of those immigrants coming across the border and offer them some of these jobs no one wants. They’ll be happy to have a job. $.02 and that’s what its worth.
The Voice Of Reason says
A lot of you self righteous old school patriots who are holier than thou miss the elephant in the room. Covid runs amuck in Florida due to a governor that ignores science and the established medical community. Being anti mask mandate especially in schools with children ineligible for a vaccine along with lax guidelines and weak vaccine messaging makes desantis negligent in his duties to the people. Couple that with greed driven business owners that don’t take the safety of their employees seriously it’s no wonder people don’t want to go back to their low pay, zero benefit abusive workplaces. A lot of them have become delivery drivers so as not to have a creep boss breathing down their necks making their shift one of misery. Top that with abusive, entitled miserable sub humans complaining about every little thing (especially mask mandates) whether in a restaurant, store or jet. The only reason we still have covid affecting our lives in such a big way is due to gullible, ignorant, brainwashed republicans. The type that are expert marksman shooting themselves in the foot with their abundant firearms. There’s a reason Florida repeatedly is the covid epicenter of the USA is due to leadership failures on the part of desantis, scott, rubio, gaetz etc…etc. Dumb southerners and northern transplants are fools to believe the politized drivel they are fed from out corrupt politicians.
Benson says
Let me chime back in here for clarity… Ain’t none of us on this little county’s local news site (no offense Flagler Live) rich. We’re not the 1 percenters. We’re probably not even the 5 percenters who now account for over 80% of the total wealth of our country. Those people don’t give a rat’s behind about you, me, or anyone else in little ole rinky dink Florida county for that matter. So we on here are just a bunch of slugs slugging it out with each other over shit we cannot and will not ever control.
It’s expensive across the board for us folks! Housing. Travel. Food. Entertainment. Education (for the bafoons that said “just go to school”). And our wages ARE NOT KEEPING UP with these costs. It’s no where near keeping up. Meanwhile, executive pay, hedge fund managers, athletes, Kardashians, all of their pay has gone up in the hundreds of percents over the last several decades. AND YOU’RE ALL GOOD WITH IT! Why? The “American Dream” you’ve so feverishly and blindly bought into. You for some reason or another seem to think the 1% is just going to rain cash down upon you. Trickle down? No, trickle on!
You want to fix it? Join in what is happening right now. Stop working for “the man”. If you get a job offer with a corporation, do some research to see how those executives are living. Look at their houses. Their cars. Their pay if publicly traded. Tell’em to go pound sand. Start your OWN business. Earn your OWN money. Be your OWN boss. Then, when you’re ready to hire, do it with fairness, equality, respect, admiration, dignity, compassion… You know, those things you somehow or another forgot how to do and be.
Personally, I find nothing attractive about a billionaire. Hell, toss in many multi-millionaires for that matter. I find them quite disgusting. Know why? Because they didn’t get to where they got without stomping on someone or likely many someone’s directly and indirectly just like YOU and ME. They’re not smarter. They’re not wiser. They’re not better looking. Their shit stinks just like yours. No. They’re where they’re at because they stomped on us, inadvertently and/or intentionally. They could take their “earnings” and pay you more. They could. Of course they could. They could provide more healthcare, childcare, transportation, bonuses, ping pong tables, pizza. No. They choose to not do that because then they can’t control you. They could not impress you with their mere presence. They could not have you gawk at their Ted Talk on TikTok, get more likes, and subsequently and ironically more money to them and less to you. After all, who would fly rockets to the edge of the atmosphere for a minute or two and call themselves astronauts, while their stock portfolios and wealth go up another 20%?
Get a clue folks. We’re ALL blind suckers in this shitshow called capitalism.
FlaglerLive says
Accuracy is never an offense.
ASF says
“Your workplace isn’t good enough for me!” Man, is THAT ever an entitled attitude! I bet plenty of hopeful immigrants would love to have those “nasty jobs that nobody wants.”
If this is the sort of attitude that our kids are learning in schools, then college tuitions should be free…because that’s all they are worth….So typical of the “Everybody gets an award or nobody gets an award” generation.
I wonder if the US would have EVER gotten out of the Great Depression with this sort of mindset reigning supreme.